


Go Forward. Do Not Stray.

by snarkasaurus



Series: Fictober 2018 [25]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 16:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkasaurus/pseuds/snarkasaurus
Summary: Fictober 2018, Day 24. Stiles is caught...somewhere.





	Go Forward. Do Not Stray.

_Go forward. Do not stray._

Stiles stumbled down the path in front of him. The world was inky black. No glimmer of light aided his eyes straining to see. He could hear rustling around him, of people, of _things_ moving just beyond the edge of the path. 

_Go forward. Do not stray._

The ground was spongy-soft beneath his feet. That was the only way he knew where to go. He had his hand out, trying to keep himself from walking face first into a tree. It mostly worked. He had scratches on his cheeks from the whipping lash of branches, but at least his nose wasn’t broken. Stiles took another forward step, and then another. 

_Go forward. Do not stray._

He’d paused once, mostly to catch his breath. He wasn’t running, but he wasn’t moving slowly, either, and he was getting tired. The dark pressing in around on him made it worse. He’d found himself gasping for air before he would have thought, and he had stopped. He just wanted a breath. Immediately, the noises around him rose in a cacophonous shriek and the ground beneath him wavered. Stiles had scrambled forward in a panic, trying to get away from whatever was around him, whatever was behind him, underneath him. He kept moving now. 

_Go forward. Do not stray._

Was that a light up ahead? Was that an end to this oppressive, stygian hell in which he was trapped? Or was it only a ruse, another test? Was it a lure to try and pull Stiles off the path, to drag him into the waiting maw of whatever creature could reach him first? His thigh was bleeding from the last trick of his eyes. He knew, from some obscure reading done at four in the morning in the grips of insomnia, that the eyes would invent light when none could be found. He also knew that in this, he hadn’t necessarily invented it. It looked like a whisp, a glowing, gentle light flitting through the air invitingly. He’d taken a step toward it without thinking. The ground under his foot was not the soft texture of the path. Instead, it was hard, cold, burning cold, and before he could react, claws raked down his leg in a eager grab for him. Stiles had jerked himself back—frantically careful to move forward down the path in his movement instead of back—before the other claw could catch hold. The gashes were slowly clotting, and hurt more than he could say, but he could still walk. So he did. 

_Go forward. Do not stray._

Stiles was going to die. He had not eaten or drunken anything in what felt like days. His leg wound had clotted, but he had no idea how much blood he had lost. He felt tired, weak, incapable of moving forward much longer. Each step he took was slower than the last. Walking became plodding became shuffling became creeping. Creeping would soon become inching, and then… then, the path would go soft. The shrieking would rise. The creatures with claws would come for him. 

_Go forward. Do not stray._

He took one step. He took another. He took a third. And then Stiles couldn’t lift his foot again. He stopped moving. 

They came for him.


End file.
